‘Idol’ Tries to Clean Up Its Act

Another season of “American Idol” begins Wednesday; perhaps you haven’t noticed.

It is surely not the occasion it used to be, when “Idol” strode the television world like a colossus. Now the Fox network, which cashed in on this singing competition’s enormous ratings for more than a decade, is contemplating a new season with severely tempered hopes — and a plan.

The hopes come down to arresting the bleeding that has afflicted the show in the last two seasons, with ratings declines of 30 percent in each one.

The plan is to offer a revitalized version of “Idol.” “It reminds me of those old commercials,” said Kevin Reilly, Fox Broadcasting’s entertainment chairman. “It’s not Tide. It’s the new, improved Tide. It’s not our intention to do a sort of overhaul but just to give the show a lot of fresh elements, to refind its footing.”

If not really adding up to a complete overhaul (the original host, Ryan Seacrest, remains), the fresh elements are coming in a sizable stack. They start with the weekly faces of the show, the judging panel, this season back down to three. The country artist Keith Urban is the only holdover from last year, joined by the pop superstar Jennifer Lopez (a fan favorite back after a year away) and the pianist-singer Harry Connick Jr.

The set is new, the lighting is new, the theme music is changed, and the format will undergo some significant tweaks:

Contestants at auditions will be allowed to use instruments; the slow middle rounds in which surviving contestants get sorted out will be sharply condensed into what Mr. Reilly called a “two-hour blitzkrieg”; the resulting shows will shrink to a half-hour in the second part of the season.

Then there’s the infamous sequences of wretched or hilariously bad performances: Those will be “exponentially less to almost nonexistent,” Mr. Urban said. He, Ms. Lopez and Mr. Connick all spoke out against the practice, with Mr. Connick the sharpest, saying he had told several hopelessly poor contestants: “This is a waste of time. You just need to stop.”

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Jillian Jensen, a contestant, in the revamped show.CreditMichael Becker/Fox

All four of the principal executive producers are also new, as is the director, Louis J. Horvitz, well known for his work on music specials and live events like the Emmy Awards.

And that doesn’t count perhaps the most significant change. From the inception of “Idol,” the Fox executive in charge of the show was Mike Darnell, the rogue genius of reality television, who left the network after last season’s finale. In his place, Fox has brought in David Hill, a senior executive who has overseen Fox’s sports division for 20 years.

Mr. Reilly certainly wanted Mr. Hill. “Nobody is better with live events,” he said. Mr. Hill brought countless innovations to sports television, highlighted by the introduction of the Fox Box, an on-screen look at the score and stats, and the auto-racing Gopher Cam, embedded in the track to capture cars flying overhead.

But the desire to recruit Mr. Hill went even higher. “Chase or the boss asked me to look at projects that could be doing better — which is the most diplomatic way of putting it,” Mr. Hill said. Chase is Chase Carey, president and chief operating officer of Fox’s parent, 21st Century Fox; the boss is his fellow Australian native and longtime friend, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of 21st Century Fox.

Asked if his participation signified just how big a priority “Idol” remains for Fox, Mr. Hill said, “You are correct, sir.”

Mr. Reilly acknowledged that the plunge in ratings the last two seasons had been highly painful. When Fox reported its first-quarter earnings last year, the decline in local and national advertising revenue was attributed directly to the collapse of “Idol.”

How bad was that collapse? The show wound up with what amounts to a hit rating number these days, a 4.5 in the audience that Fox sells to advertisers, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49. But that masked the true nature of the show’s ratings drop. Almost every edition in the second half of last season set a new low. The finale, seen by 14.3 million viewers, was down more than 40 percent from a year earlier. As recently as 2011, the finale attracted over 29 million viewers, and that was down from the show’s high point of 38 million in 2003.

The show’s central appeal, that it pulled in viewers from every generation, had also clearly eroded: The median viewer age reached 51.2, up four years in only two seasons.

The Fox executives acknowledged the impact of the competition, from “The Voice,” a true hit for NBC, and Fox’s own “X Factor,” which has generated ever-weaker ratings while apparently diluting interest in “Idol.” But they did not shrink from assigning principal blame for the “Idol” ratings plunge last season to on-air enmity between two of the judges, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj, which sent viewers packing.

Mr. Reilly decried the “antics going on” last season. “When it became all about the drama about the judges, that was really out of whack,” he said.

Mr. Hill said: “There are so many positive qualities about this show, why would you want conflict there at all — question mark, question mark, question mark. The show can never be about the judges.”

Of course, a focus on the judges had emerged early on, as “Idol” grew into a phenomenon and the first panel, led by Simon Cowell, went from obscure to celebrated.

The new group is hardly anonymous. Ms. Lopez’s fame is on par with that of any star who has appeared on the show, and Mr. Urban and Mr. Connick both have significant followings as well as musical expertise.

But Mr. Hill, who had an important role in the judges’ selection, said the emphasis would return to the contestants, their talent and their emotions. (Mr. Reilly conceded that the overall weakness of the competition was an issue last season. “Frankly, we didn’t find the contestant who overshadowed the judges’ story,” he said. “Had we exploded a talent or two, I think that would have made a difference.”)

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Kelly Clarkson, left, the victor, and Justin Guarini in the first “Idol” finale.CreditLucy Nicholson/Associated Press

Ms. Lopez, who was asked back because she was part of the show during its most recent high point, said she returned for a simple reason: “They offered me, and it’s fun. I still enjoy the journey of it, that American dream. The same things that made me fall in love with it in the first season are still there for me.”

Mr. Reilly said Mr. Urban had made a positive impression last season “even though it was hard for him to get a word in edgewise.” Mr. Urban said he had enjoyed the experience and had “no hesitation at all” about coming back. “I love the spirit of the show,” he said. “For me, it’s always been about going to some town no one’s ever heard of and finding that diamond in the rough.”

Mr. Connick had been a fan since the first season, when he sat in the audience and watched Kelly Clarkson win. “It has the benefit of being a tried-and-true format but with newfound energy,” he said. “I like to think of it as an incredibly beautiful grand house that started to show its age and they shut it down and remodeled it.”

Age is much on the mind of the executives in charge of the remodeling. Mr. Hill recalled watching the first seasons with multiple generations in his home. “Then it changed, and it wasn’t that anymore,” he said. The aim now is to make it a “season of rediscovery” that leads back to all-family viewing. “If you do it well, and you strike that emotional-response chord with the audience, anything’s possible,” he said.

But what exactly is possible with a fading hit in its 13th year? “As it continues to get older, you just kind of want it to age gracefully,” Mr. Reilly said. He noted that other aging reality shows like “Survivor” and “The Bachelor” had seen their ratings erode and managed to “flatten out to a level of audience that kind of sustains.”

“Our goal is to do a good job and keep millions of core fans who love ‘Idol,’ just keep them engaged and sort of flatten it out,” he said.

That doesn’t sound much like the cultural phenomenon the show once was. But Mr. Reilly said the time had come for realism. “We’ll be down again this season, just naturally because of the marketplace,” he said. “In a reasonable decline, I will be thrilled. Will ‘Idol” continue to be the centerpiece, the tent pole, of the network? Will it be on as many hours as it has been in the past?

“Perhaps not. We’ll see where we are after this season. I just want it to be a vibrant, alive franchise that people love — for as long as it can go.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misidentified the parent company of Fox Broadcasting — that company is 21st Century Fox, not News Corporation — and misstated the titles of Chase Carey and Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Carey is president and chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox, not president and chief executive of News Corporation. Mr. Murdoch is chairman of 21st Century, not chairman of News Corporation.

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